Noël Godin | |
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 Photo with Noël Godin (left) in Harelbeke, Belgium with his producer Francis De Smet and his director Jan Bucquoy. | |
| Born | 13 September 1945 Liège, Belgium |
| Occupation | writer, critic, actor, anarchist |
| Nationality | Belgian |
Noël Godin (born 13 September 1945) is a Belgian writer, critic, actor and notorious pie thrower or entarteur. Godin gained global attention in 1998 when his group ambushed Microsoft CEO Bill Gates in Brussels, pelting the software magnate with a pie. After bombarding Gates, Godin allegedly said, "My work is done here."
Philosophy
Godin insists he is non-violent and is careful to use only what he calls a "tarte classique", filled with whipped cream and perhaps a little chocolate in soft sponge cake. He says his humor can be traced back through Jerry Lewis, Wile E. Coyote, the Marx Brothers and yippies like Abbie Hoffman.[1]
Godin is inspired (for instance in his Anthologie de la subversion carabinée (1989)) by the works of the Utopian philosophers Tommaso Campanella (Civitas Solis) and Charles Fourier (La Phalange, Le Phalanstère). His ideal society is one where there is no struggle for power or money and where everybody can live in a state of perfect happiness.[2] He is also an admirer of the anarchist Ravachol without approving his violence, sentiment which inspired him to his pie-attacks.[3]
Selected victims
The list of public figures Godin and his accomplices have targeted with pies includes:[1]
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Books
- Anthologie de la subversion carabinée, L'âge d'homme, 1989, ISBN 2-8251-0715-8 (philosophical study of political freedom), réédition revue et augmentée, 2008
- Zig zig boum boum, Le Veilleur, Toulouse, 1994
- Crème et châtiment : mémoire d'un entarteur, Albin Michel, 1995
- Godin par Godin, Yellow Now, 2001, ISBN 2-87340-151-6
- Armons-nous les uns les autres! (novel), Flammarion, 2003, ISBN 978-2-08-068385-4
- Entartons, entartons les pompeux cornichons!, Flammarion, 2005, ISBN 2-08-068546-5 (The story of all his pieings).